


Escape from Sovereign Mercy Hill

by telekinetic_hedgehog



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Religious, Child Abuse, Death Threats, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Escape, Exorcisms, Guns, Hobo Rey, Homophobia, Implied Food Resriction, Implied Physical Abuse, Interrogation, M/M, None of this is legal advice, POV Multiple, Poe Dameron Makes Dad Jokes, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Guilt, Tasers, Whump, attempted exorcisms anyway, conversion therapy, journalist Poe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinetic_hedgehog/pseuds/telekinetic_hedgehog
Summary: Poe Dameron is an investigative journalist working to expose the sinister truth about Sovereign Mercy Hill, a religious fundamentalist camp for "troubled" teens. Finn is a young adult who's trapped in the cult-like camp and wants to escape. Rey is a hobo who lives in the woods nearby. Together, they shine a light on the evil organization and get it shut down for good.





	1. Chapter 1

The Appalachian woods were dense and dark, the shadowy outlines of pine trees rising straight and narrow from the needle-strewn, uneven forest floor. It was almost the new moon, and the forest was spookily quiet except for the occasional owl hoot and the sound of distant crickets.

It was time.

Inside his tent, Poe Dameron saved the document with what he had of his exposé so far and slid his tablet into its case. Carefully, he hid the case under a pile of camping gear, just in case anyone came upon his little campsite. Not that there should be anyone else out here: he was conducting an investigation on private property. Trespassing, if you wanted to be technical, but Poe didn’t really want to think about that.

The night was cool, not the steam-cooker he’d imagined the South to be, but a humid chill that went right to his bones. He wrapped himself up in the thrift-store leather jacket he’d been grateful to have with him since his first night here, climbed out of the tent, and zipped the door flap shut behind him.

He strapped on his camera and hiked up the hill towards the compound, zig-zagging around the trees and holding onto their thick bark for balance.  At the edge of the woods was a rustic chapel, lit on the inside with eerie, color-distorting fluorescent lights that seemed out of place in the natural setting and a building with exposed wood on its outside walls. From the cover of the dark woods, Poe aimed his camera at the chapel’s window and twisted the lens to bring it into focus.

Inside the chapel, a group of adolescents sat in a circle of metal folding chairs that looked uncomfortable. The kids seemed scared-- some were tense and rigid, others fidgeted nervously. Within the circle, one of the camp leaders, a man with red hair that clashed with his red sweater vest, was giving a sermon, like he had the past few nights. Or maybe less of a sermon and more of a rant. He paced around, agitated, sometimes striding over to one child or another to glare down at them and point his finger accusingly. Off to the side, with their arms folded over their chests, a tall man in long, black, clerical robes and a tall woman with a steely grey bun watched with stone expressions. They might as well have been wearing masks for all their faces said.

From his distance, Poe couldn’t make out everything the preacher was saying, but certain louder phrases stood out, from calling some of the girls Jezebel, to the “demons of Sodom,” to, in one crescendo, begging God to “crush the spirit of rebellion.” That fit with what Poe had gathered of the group’s beliefs so far: anti-women, anti-gay, anti-thinking for oneself. His stomach churned and he was fuming, but he kept his hands steady enough to photograph the diatribe.

The preacher stopped in front of one kid, a pale boy probably in his late teens, and yanked him to his feet by the front of his shirt. The man in the clerical robes stepped into the circle, took the boy by the back of the neck and led him to the center, where he shoved him roughly to his knees. The boy’s eyes were wide with terror, and he wrapped his arms around himself protectively. Poe couldn’t make out what the clergyman was saying to the group, but they stood up, reached their hands forward, and formed a huddle Poe couldn’t see through.

One kid, however, hesitated to join in whatever the group was doing. He hung back towards the edge and put his hands down, breathing heavily as though he were panicking. The woman with the grey bun walked sternly around the circle to confront him. He shook his head. She frowned, took him by the arm, and walked him through the door of the chapel and into the dark, cold night. Poe was curious what would happen to him, but part of him was scared to find out.

The clergyman went on for some time longer before dismissing the group. The children stood, solemnly formed a single-file line, and left the chapel. The pale boy was the last to leave, and his face was red and tear-stained when he finally stood to go. The two camp leaders turned off the lights and closed the door, leaving only shadows in Poe’s camera.

This place was definitely creepy, and definitely fucked up. But whether there was enough evidence of illegal activity to get it shut down, that was hard to say. Poe _could_ just go back to his campsite, copy the pictures onto his tablet along with the others, and write about what he saw and heard over the past few days. Or he could keep sticking his nose where it didn’t belong to dig up some real dirt on this place.

Easy choice.

He crept around the outside of the chapel, stepping quietly through leaves and pine needles. It was too bad he couldn’t interview one of the kids trapped here. They’d have a lot to say if he could get alone with some of them, he was sure of it, but there wasn’t a way to make that happen that didn’t involve making life worse for them both.

The door to the mess hall was unlocked, and Poe smiled at his luck as he snuck into the kitchen. The record of food shipments was taped to the refrigerator, and Poe shone a flashlight onto it and photographed it. He’d do some math and research later to figure out if it was enough food for the number of kids that lived here, but guessing from what was on the page, he doubted it. The source that tipped the paper off to this camp suspected that they were underfeeding kids, or withholding food as punishment. His editor-in-chief, affectionately known around the paper as “The General”, was counting on him for this exposé, and he refused to let her down. And now that he was getting an idea of what was really going on here, he refused to let himself down by leaving these kids in what was almost certainly an abusive situation. Determined, he headed for the kitchen door, ready to see what he could find in some of the other buildings.

He opened the door, and-- _Zap!_ \-- two sharp pangs stabbed his stomach, throwing him backwards. A jolt of electricity made him convulse and scream in pain. After a few seconds that seemed to go by in slow motion, the circuit stopped, and he lay on his back, groaning and twitching, with a dull ache in the back of his head. When he opened his eyes, he was staring down the double-barrel of a shotgun held by the woman he had seen before, who was staring down at him.

_Shit._

In a thick drawl, she muttered, “Told ‘em we had someone sneakin’ around.”

She jabbed at the underside of his chin, but he couldn’t gather the muscle coordination to move.

“Reverend Ren! Pastor Hucks!” she called. “I got our intruder.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 The taser barbs hurt like hell coming out. Poe wanted to fight back against the two men who dragged him across the campgrounds, but even after the shock to his nervous system started to wear off, he wasn’t about to take his chances against the woman nudging him along with her shotgun. The building they took him to was one near the entrance to the property-- the proper entrance, not the one Poe had used-- and from what he’d gathered two nights ago, they used it for intake sessions and administrative work.

The sign over the door read “Sovereign Mercy Hill: restoring our youth to the first order of creation,” a reference to the beginning of Genesis. Supposedly this meant redemption from the Fall of Man (in theory), but mostly stereotypical gender roles and heterosexuality (in practice). And mercy? This place? Were they were reading _1984_ as a how-to manual when they named it? _Hope they haven’t got Room 101 in here, too._

In a back office, the men shoved him into a chair while the woman, whom they called Sister Pamela, locked the door behind them. He was trying to think of something to break the tense silence when he realized they were duct taping his wrists to the sides of the chair.

“What the-- are you kidnapping me?” He tried to pull his hands away, but the tape held them in place. “First you tase me and threaten me with a shotgun, and-- you’re _seriously_ kidnapping me. What the fuck?”

The reverend raised his hand towards Poe in an ominous gesture. “Demons of profanity, I bind you in the name of our Lord--”

“Fuck that, and fuck you. If you want me off your property, then let me go!”

“Our property, our rules,” said the sweater vest guy, Hucks.

“You trespassed,” Sister Pamela said. “This is a citizen’s arrest.”

“You’re bringing the police here?” Poe asked. “Shoulda thought that one out better. I can’t wait to see this place crawling with cops after what you’ve been up to.”

The three of them exchanged a look, and Poe knew that had been the wrong thing to say.

“And just what do you think we’ve been up to?” she asked.

Poe clenched his jaw and refused to answer.

“Who are you? And how much do you know?” Reverend Ren asked. When Poe kept his mouth shut, Ren snatched the camera and turned it on. The other two watched as he cycled through all the photos from that night. Fortunately, none of the previous pictures were still on it, but it was clear that in their minds, Poe had already seen too much.

With a sudden yell, Ren hurled the camera against the floor, smashing the lens and cracking the body.

“Hey!”

“Who are you? How did you get here?” Ren demanded.

When Poe didn’t answer, Hucks backhanded him across the face. “Dare you defy a man of God?”

“Pretty sure traumatizing children isn’t what a man of God would do.”

The reverend stood over him, stretching his hand towards Poe’s face. In a slow, threatening monotone, he commanded: “In the name of our Lord, I bind these demons of defiance--”

“That’s creepy, knock it off.”

“I bind these demons of secrecy. In the name of our Lord I command that this man’s hidden works of darkness be exposed, that the works of our spiritual adversary be in vain--”

“Stop that! I’m not demon-possessed, okay? I’m just a journalist, not some supernatural, magic--”

The reverend stopped. “Thank you, Lord.”

“So.” Hucks looked Poe over. “A spy of the godless, liberal news media, sent by Satan to persecute us.”

Poe took a deep breath and sighed. “Listen, you guys care about truth, right? So let me publish the truth. If you’re so righteous, what do you have to hide?”  

“The ways of the righteous are folly in the eyes of the world.” Sister Pamela shook her head.

_If by folly, you mean obviously evil to anyone with half a conscience, sure._

“Why don’t we just get the truth out and let the facts speak for themselves?”

She took a knife out of her belt-- _Who the hell needs a taser, a shotgun, and a knife?_ \-- and flipped it around in her hands. “All men must return to dust, their souls to be judged by the Lord. There’s a lot of dust in these woods just waiting to consume the wicked.”

Poe swallowed hard.

“Sister Pamela. Let us act with prudence in this matter,” said the reverend.

“Ren is right. Shall we seek the Lord’s wisdom first, in my office?” added Hucks.

They left the room, locking the door from the outside, and Poe knew he didn’t have much time. He completely believed they were capable of murdering him and dumping his body in the woods, never to be found. No matter how hard he struggled, though, the tape around his wrists kept him stuck to the chair. The puncture wounds from being tased still stung, and so did his face from being hit, and soon that wouldn’t even matter because he’d be _dead._

Something behind him creaked. He craned his neck just in time to see someone jump into the room through the now-open window. The person straightened up, and Poe recognized him as the teen who’d refused to go along with whatever was happening in the chapel.

“Do you know how to get back to the highway?” the kid asked, getting to work on tearing through the tape.

“Yeah, why?”

“Good. We’re getting out of here. Can you drive a 4-wheeler?” The teen ripped through the other piece of tape, and Poe peeled away from the restraints, leaving his skin raw where the tape had stuck to him.

“Never tried, but I can drive a car. Why are you helping me?”

“A, it’s the right thing to do, B, I need a guide out of the woods. Not a huge fan of getting lost alone and dying.” The teen gave him a wry smile, with bright, kind eyes. “Can you run?”

“You bet. One thing first.” Poe picked up what was left of his camera and opened the side to remove the memory card, which had survived intact. “Can’t leave my evidence behind.”

He tucked it away in the front pocket of his jacket before following his new ally out the window. They made a quick dash across a dark field to a row of ATVs and hopped on the first one they found with a key still in the ignition. Sweaty from struggling and running, Poe took off his jacket and laid it across the seat in front of him.

“All right. Let’s do this.” He turned the key, and they sped away towards the campground entrance. The rush of cold air against his skin and through his hair, and the relief of surviving such a close call, exhilarated him.

“So what’s your name?” he asked his new friend.

“Ugh, don’t ask. It’s one of _their_ names, and it’s ridiculous. I’m gonna choose my own name once we get out of here and I figure out who I want to be, but right now, I’m just finished with all this.”

“Hi, Just Finished. I’m Poe Dameron.”

The kid burst out laughing, a sincere belly laugh that made Poe smile until he realized this kid probably didn’t have a dad who told him groaners. Better not ask about that.

“So can I call you J.F. for short, in the meantime? Or Justin, that’s a name. So is Finn.”

“Finn,” he said, testing it out. “Actually, I like that. Finn.”

Poe looked over his shoulder to smile at Finn, and Finn smiled back.

“Nice to meet you, Poe. My name is Finn.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Finn. Welcome to your new life.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated; please do mind the tags for triggers.

Finn could hardly believe it. Finally. He was  _ finally  _ free. The cold wind against his skin, and the rumble of the ATV under him, and the patches of star-dusted sky peeking through the silhouettes of the trees above him were all too real for it to be a dream. 

_ Welcome to your new life _ was right. It was a big world beyond the camp, and he had so much to experience, so much lost time to make up. 

“Thanks,” Finn said. “I can hardly believe I’m finally out.” 

“How long were you there?” 

How long? The number hardly mattered. You had to be there to know how they made it feel like there was no world outside the borders of the camp, no life outside the routine and the rules and the ever-watching eyes of the few people who were there. He wasn’t even sure time had the same meaning out here. 

“Six years, two months, and thirteen days.” 

“Whoa. Six years? How old were you?” 

“It was a little after I turned thirteen.” 

“Wait. So you’re nineteen now?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Finn, you’re not a minor. You’ve been a legal adult for over a year.” Poe turned to look at him for a moment. “You’re telling me they kept you there against your will, as an adult, for over a year?” 

“Well, yeah. My parents wouldn’t give me my ID, and the camp’s surrounded by miles of woods. What was I supposed to do?” 

“It’s not your fault. What your parents did was illegal and wrong.” 

“They don’t care. Sovereign Mercy promised to make me obedient. Make me  _ straight. _ They care about that more than the laws of man.” 

Poe shook his head. “That’s disgusting. I’m so sorry. Listen, I know I can’t undo what happened, but I’m gonna do what I can to get that place shut down. ” 

“How’d you find out about it? And heck, what’d you do to end up tied to a chair?” 

Poe laughed. “I’m an investigative journalist. My paper got a tip that the camp leaders were mistreating kids, and I got some evidence to back that up. Not as much as I wanted, but hopefully enough to at least get law enforcement to take it seriously and look into it. Your camp leaders weren’t thrilled about that-- they were deciding whether to take me into the woods for a real long nap, if you catch my drift.” 

“Gosh.” Finn shook his head. “Good thing we made it out in time.” 

“Yeah, I’ve had a lotta close calls-- a few months ago, my team was interviewing an inmate and got trapped during a prison riot, now  _ that’s _ a story-- but this one takes the cake.” 

“The evidence-- that’s what’s on the card from your camera?” 

“Some of it. Most of it’s on my tablet, back at my campsite. I’m taking you to the highway like you said, and then I’m going back for it. You can hitchhike to pretty much wherever, or if you want to wait for me while I pack up my campsite, I can take you to the visitor’s center of the state park a few miles south of here. I’ve got a car in the parking lot there. You can crash on my couch for a while if you want.” 

“Thanks, but I’ll take my chances on the highway.” 

“Fair enough. You’re free now.” Poe turned enough to flash him a smile, and Finn beamed back.  

“Yeah. Free. I still can’t believe it.” 

“Hey Finn?” Poe asked. “This isn’t an interview, I won’t quote you,  but I’m curious. What was going on in the chapel tonight?” 

Finn hesitated, and Poe quickly backtracked: “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, of course.” 

“No, it’s fine.” He took a deep breath. “A public confession. It doesn’t happen very often. The Hill’s not an easy place, and it’s too much for some people. Slip was getting in a lot of trouble lately, and the pastors singled him out for us to pray around him and him to, uh. Confess his sins. It usually ends up being a lot of accusations and people confessing to things they haven’t done just to get it over with. I just… Slip’s my friend, and I worry about him.” 

“And you didn’t want to betray him by being part of that.” 

“Right.” Finn nodded. 

“That was brave of you,” Poe said. “You’re a good man, Finn.” 

The statement took him by surprise. 

Six years of being told he was a sinner, words like  _ wretched. Fallen. Sodomite. Abomination.  _ He’d felt dirty and lacking for so long that being called good felt like it couldn’t possibly be right. Poe was confused, or didn’t know him well enough. Finn opened his mouth to correct him, but stopped. 

Wasn’t that part of the point of escaping? Knowing that Sovereign Mercy lied to him and abused the kids it was supposed to take care of? The public confessions, the corporal punishment that left bruises for days, the enforced fasting until his stomach felt like it was turning in on itself. They were wrong about what love was, and wrong about a lot of things. And maybe if he wasn’t a good man yet, well, maybe he could become one. 

Maybe there was a way to get Slip and everyone else out, too. 

“Poe. We need to go back. They’re gonna be searching the woods for us as soon as they noticed you were gone, and we need to get to the rest of your evidence before they find it.” 

“You don’t have to come back with me.” 

“We’re in this together. If your paper can shut the Hill down, I want to do whatever it takes to help.” 

Poe nodded. “All right. There’s a crossroads up ahead, and the road will lead us in a loop around the back of the camp. We’ll find my campsite in the valley near the chapel.” 

On the way back towards Poe's campsite, Finn told him more about what life had been like. Some memories he kept tucked away to himself, of course. But an overview of the religious beliefs and rituals of the leaders, the poor excuse for therapy that attempted to change kids’ orientations (Poe was appalled to learn what else that taser had been used for), and the day to day schedule were all things he knew too well. He tried to emphasize the bits that would give the exposé the weight it needed. 

It wasn’t all business, though. Poe said Finn needed to have a party to celebrate his freedom. Poe’s eighteenth birthday had been right before his high school graduation, and from what he said, the adulthood-birthday-graduation bash had been quite the party. Gosh, high school. Finn knew the education he’d been subjected to wasn’t anywhere close to adequate, but Poe assured him there were plenty of resources out there to help him earn his GED, if he wanted it. 

The ATV hummed along the trail at the top of a ridge with valleys on either side. The trail narrowed as the ridge did, and it wound its way around thick trees and over exposed roots. The uneven path jostled them around and made the ATV unsteady. Poe pointed out where the camp was, on the opposite side of one of the valleys, even though they couldn’t see it through all the trees and at such a distance. Every so often Poe would look over his shoulder to smile at Finn, and Finn melted a little more each time. This brave man, trying to discover and speak the truth, who had showed up to be Finn’s ticket out on a night when he especially longed for it, was starting to give him the sorts of feelings that Finn had tried to suppress for years. A twinge of guilt and panic wouldn’t go away, but Finn let the warm feelings grow instead of shoving them down. 

The fantasy of wrapping his arms around him and holding him close came to Finn’s mind without his conscious intent. He imagined slipping a hand up Poe’s thin shirt to caress skin and muscle, then leaning in to kiss his neck. Rough stubble under Finn’s lips, Poe’s masculine scent mixing with the fragrance of pine woods, the joy of a romance that was no longer forbidden-- it could happen, right? 

Finn was shaken out of his daydream when the ground vanished under him, there was a sharp jolt and a loud  _ crash, _ and he was suddenly tumbling over the forest floor. 


	4. Chapter 4

Rey tossed the jars into her sack, swept the rest of the trash back into the open half of the dumpster, and hopped to the ground as silent as a cat. She closed the dumpster, careful not to make a sound, picked up her walking stick, and scampered back into the dark woods. This place gave her the creeps-- it was some kind of weird cult or something-- and she suspected they knew someone had been sneaking recyclables out of their garbage.

Maybe it wasn’t worth it, coming here. Making a whopping 5 cents an item, just for the sour-faced manager at the recycling plant to scowl at her and look her over with his frumpy, judgmental squint? Maybe she’d be better off taking odd jobs in the next town over, or living off the kindness of visitors to the state park a couple miles south.

She hoisted the sack higher on her back and made her way down the hill, careful not to slip on the pine straw and dry leaves. At the bottom of the hill, the valley was flat and the path was less dangerous. She stopped to put on her brown plaid shirt, wrapping the oversized flannel around her against the chill.

A loud crash in the distance startled Rey and echoed off the side of the hills. She ducked, crouching low so as not to be seen, a reflex since seeing a woman with a shotgun a few weeks ago at the camp. But the noise wasn’t a shotgun firing. Rey waited a few moments longer to calm down before standing up and continuing through the valley.

She walked for some time, enjoying the peaceful stillness of the woods, quiet except for the rhythm of the crickets, but part of her stayed alert. Up ahead, she heard the chittering of a young raccoon. It crossed her path, looking up at her with its masked face and carrying in its mouth a long string of jerky with half the wrapper still on.

“Where’d you get that, little guy?” she asked it. It looked at her defensively and scurried away.

Her question was answered a little ways down the path. A campsite, or what was left of one, was overrun by a family of raccoons. A tent was reduced to a crumpled, half-fallen pile of tarp, camping gear was strewn across the ground, and six or seven of the little scavengers were feasting on a stash of trail mix, jerky, energy bars, and dried fruit.

To say it was a mess was putting it mildly. Still, this stuff could be valuable. Assuming the campsite owner wasn’t still around, that is. Rey wasn’t the type to steal, but she wasn’t about to let all this stuff go to waste if it had been abandoned.

“Hey!” she called, pushing back the door flap of the tent with her walking stick. “Anyone home? You gonna stop these raccoons from tearing apart your campsite, or--”

Nope. No one there. Rey turned back to the mess outside to see what could be saved. Whoa, was that a gas cooking stove? She took a step and nearly tripped on something flat and solid, accidentally kicking it across the dry leaves on the ground. Upon picking it up, she realized it was a soft case with something hard inside. She zipped it open and, to her surprise, pulled out a shiny tablet.

Who the fuck brings their tablet camping? _Yuppie nonsense. Leave your toys at home if you’re gonna enjoy nature, people._ It wasn’t broken, either-- the tablet lit up, displaying a lockscreen that asked the user to input four numbers. The background picture showed a group of people of different races: a young man in a leather jacket, a woman with dark hair and a pen behind her ear, a big man holding a newspaper, a woman with a bleach-blonde pixie cut, and a woman who might have been their mother if they hadn’t all been clearly unrelated to each other. They were smiling and had their arms around each other like family, though. Adopted family, perhaps? Rey felt a pang of longing and loneliness at the sight of them.

She tried a few codes-- 0000, 1111, 1234-- before giving up and slipping the tablet back into its case and into her sack. If she could sell it, that would mean a month’s worth of food for her.

The stove joined the tablet in her sack, along with a box of granola that the critters hadn’t gotten in, a handful of instant coffee packets, and a thermos. Rey had spotted a backpack and was about to sort through it when she heard a rustle of leaves and stopped.

Footsteps.

Someone was walking through the valley, and it sounded like they were coming right towards her. She picked her walking stick back up, gripped it with both hands, and crouched silently in waiting.


	5. Chapter 5

The force of the crash hurled Finn over the ledge and tumbled him over the rough hillside. He slammed into a tree, abruptly stopping his momentum down the slope. The blow to his ribs knocked the breath out of him, and it took a few dizzy, panicked moments for his body to remember how to breathe and how to tell which way was up. 

_ Crap. _ As soon as he could move, he scrambled back up to the trail. 

“Poe?” 

No answer. Just the quiet darkness and the distant crickets.

The ATV was on its side against a cluster of pines, and the front looked like crushed tinfoil. Starlight glinted off a puddle of gas dripping out of it onto the ground. An exposed tree root had hidden a deep hole in the trail-- Poe must have mistaken the hole for the root’s shadow and not thought to avoid it. 

“Poe? Are you okay?” Finn didn’t dare to raise his voice much-- who knows if the camp leaders were out there with the shotgun. There was no sign of Poe on the trail, nor on the hill that Finn had started to fall down. The ledge on the other side of the trail was sharper. There were fewer trees, and while Finn couldn’t see very far into the darkness, it looked much steeper. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Finn realized that if Poe had fallen in that direction, he might not have survived. 

Finn stumbled into a tree, breathing hard and trying not to panic. Alone in the woods, with no idea how to get out, on the run from people who could shoot him-- unless they took him back, and he’d be punished for sure-- and his recklessness in trying to escape might have just gotten someone  _ killed--  _

No. He wasn’t going to freak out. His friends at the camp needed someone to get the evidence out, and that someone would have to be Finn. He was going to come up with a plan-- wait. The evidence. 

Poe’s jacket was in a heap on the trail, where it had fallen off the ATV. Finn checked the front pocket, and the memory card was still there. Finn zipped the pocket shut and put on the jacket, wincing at the pain in his ribs as he reached into one sleeve. The inside was still faintly warm. 

The plan had been to find Poe’s campsite and his tablet, and that was still the plan. Maybe Poe could find him there, or maybe the campsite would have food and water and a map so that Finn could survive and get out of the woods. 

The hillside that Finn had started to fall down was the hill between the trail and Sovereign Mercy Hill. Poe’s campsite was in the valley near the chapel. That meant that if Finn walked along the valley in the same direction they had been traveling, he was bound to reach it sooner or later, right? 

He pulled the jacket tighter around him and started down the hill. It was slow going, weaving his way through the trees and being careful not to lose his balance on the slope. Several times the slick pine needles and dry leaves started to slide under his feet, and he had to grab onto the rough bark of the trees around him to steady himself, but eventually he came to the valley and could walk on even ground. He didn’t know how far he’d have to walk, or what the campsite would look like, so all he could do was continue to look around and put one foot in front of the other.

It wasn’t long before he arrived at a campsite. Or what was left of one. The tent had collapsed, food was strewn about for the raccoons to get into, and camping gear was scattered around the tent. 

He was too late. It looked like Pamela, Hucks, and Ren had beat him to Poe's campsite, and that meant they probably already had the tablet. Which meant that Poe had probably died for nothing, and Finn was going to die with no way to find a map that would lead him out of the woods, and there was no way to shut down Sovereign Mercy Hill and free the rest of them, and-- 

“You left your campsite too long, and the critters got in it,” said a voice behind him. 

Startled, Finn turned around. The speaker was a woman no older than him, dressed like a hobo and holding a walking stick like a weapon. 

Finn put up his hands defensively. “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, we did. Sorry. Thanks.”

He didn't know what he was thanking her for, and part of him winced at letting her believe it was his campsite, too. The thought of Pastor Hucks shouting about liars being thrown into a lake of fire came to mind, but he pushed that thought away. He was  _ free _ now. 

“Listen, there's a cult up on that hill, and they're abusing kids. I'm with a newspaper trying to get the truth out about it, but my friend got lost in the woods. Can you help me?”

She smiled, and he thought he saw an eager excitement in her eyes. “So it  _ is _ a cult. That's crazy. Well, I need some adventure in my life, and rescuing kids is as good a cause as any, I reckon. Let's head to the state park and get the rangers to search for your friend.”

Right, Poe had mentioned something about a park a few miles away. Finn nodded.

“That's a great idea. I hope they find him. Alive. Hey, before we go, I'm gonna look for his tablet. It has evidence that could help us get the cult shut down, and I just hope they didn't get to it already.” 

“They didn't.” The woman reached in her sack and handed Finn a tablet case. “I thought the campsite was abandoned, and I was gonna sell it, but this is more important.” 

“Thanks.” Finn smiled at her as he opened the case. The Hill had made it sound like everyone outside their narrow religion was evil, selfish, and cruel. He didn't believe it, but he still hadn't expected the first two outsiders he'd met to be such good and selfless people.

The tablet lit up with a picture of Poe in his jacket and people whom Finn assumed were his coworkers at the paper.  _ Gosh, I hope he's all right.  _

“I guess you know your friend's code?” asked the woman. 

“No.” Finn frowned at the lock screen. 

“Do you know his birthday? Kids’ or pets’ birthdays? Any anniversaries or special events?”

Finn thought for a moment. Poe had said when his birthday was, right before his graduation. Finn tapped in a guess: _zero five zero four._

The tablet screen shifted, and Finn found himself looking at a document. Words like _cult,_ _abuse,_ and _danger_ were familiar; _misogyny,_ _homophobia,_ and _indoctrination_ weren't. But it was definitely the exposé. 

“This is it!” he grinned at the stranger. “We're really doing this, gosh. So you know how to get to the state park?” 

“Sure thing. I'll take you right up to the visitors’ center.” She hoisted her pack onto her back and set out down the valley. “My name's Rey, by the way.” 

Catching up to her, Finn met her eyes and smiled. “I'm Finn.” 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Rey walked south along the valley, with Finn at her side. She wasn't much of a talker, and they lapsed into a comfortable, familiar silence, with only their footsteps and the sounds of crickets for company. The moon was a tiny sliver, so the forest was dark, but as long as they stayed between the hills, they would make it to the State Park’s visitors’ center without getting lost. She reckoned they could make it there around sunrise, or maybe a little after. Depended how much walking Finn was up for. He was wearing beat-up white sneakers, not anything suitable for hiking, so she decided to keep an eye on him. Their mission was important, but not so urgent he should be in pain. 

They’d made it, oh, a couple of miles probably, when they passed a row of trees with neon straps tied around them. She pointed them out to him. 

“See these ties, with the crazy colors? We’re off the cult property and into the State Park. I can’t promise you they won’t follow us in here, but I think we’re safer than we were.”

Finn took a deep breath and sighed. She could only imagine he must be relieved to be no longer trespassing. Did journalists get a special pass for that? 

“That’s, uh, good to know. Yes. How much farther to the visitor’s center?”

Oh, ‘bout eight, nine miles I figure. No more than ten.”

His face fell. Poor guy, they’d sent their big city journalist out to the middle of nowhere and he wasn’t used to all this walking. Well, she couldn’t judge, really; she’d be just as lost in a city. Too many people, not enough trees. 

Another few miles in, a large, shadowy shape moved in the darkness ahead of them. A huge bear stood up on its hind paws and looked right at them. Its claws were like knives, and it was large enough to crush them with a single swat. Finn grabbed her hand and started to run. 

Rey’s heart was pounding, but she knew what to do. She just hoped it would work. She pulled away from him, dove into her pack and came up with a frying pan and the thermos from the campsite, and banged the metal cookware together above her head. The noise echoed through the valley with a discordant  _ clang clang clang, _ and she added a savage yell to the cacophony. 

Finn picked up on what she was doing, and he shouted and waved his arms above his head. For a moment, she wasn’t sure it was working. But the bear looked puzzled, and then it dropped to all fours and bounded away, back into the darkness. 

Once it vanished, Rey leaned against a tree to catch her breath. 

“Shit.” She took a long gulp from her water bottle and passed it to Finn, who drank deeply. “Well that just happened.”

“Gosh. I thought we were done for.” He met Rey’s eyes. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“Hey, your first impulse was to take my hand and run. Thanks yourself, that was pretty noble of you.” She stashed the water in her pack, along with her improvised noisemakers. “Good thing we don’t have grizzlies here, huh?”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

The rest of the hike was less eventful. They took a few breaks, and Finn ended up with a couple blisters on his feet. Eventually the sky lightened from black to a royal blue, and a glow that promised sunrise lit up the edge of the hill to the east. 

Finally, in the distance, they could see a rustic building with a green-painted roof and a green sign with white letters: 

KANATA STATE PARK

EST 1977

WELCOME VISITORS 

“This is it! We’re almost there, Finn.”

“Thank God, we made it.”

They walked up a few steps to a wide porch dotted with rocking chairs and lined with wide windows. Inside the building, it was just as homey, with couches and chairs around display cases and signs about the history of the park. 

“Rey!” 

Rey turned around and saw the head ranger, a short elderly woman wearing a scarf under her ranger hat and an oversized pair of binoculars around her neck. 

“Maz! Hi!”

She ran up to her and bent down to give her a hug. 

“Maz, this is Finn. He’s with a newspaper, and he has something very important to tell you. Finn, this is Ol’ Maz, the head ranger.” 

“How do you do, Ma’am,” Finn said politely. 

“Welcome, Finn,” said Ol’ Maz. “It’s so nice to have you.”

“Thanks. Uh, listen, my friend is lost in the woods, and I don’t know if he’s even alive--” 

Ol’ Maz lifted a walkie-talkie and spoke into it: “Code Orange, I repeat, Code Orange.” 

To Finn, she added, “Where did you last see him?”

“We were on the ridge between--” he paused and turned to Rey. “How would you describe it?”

“The north ridge. Near the private property.” 

“The group with the kids in uniforms?” asked Ol’ Maz. 

“That’s it,” said Finn. “And it’s a cult, and they’re abusing kids. We’ve gotta get those kids out of there, ma’am.” 

Ol’ Maz pursed her lips. “I see. Tell me about this missing friend, and then I want to hear more.” She spoke into her walkie-talkie: “Code Orange, west of the north ridge, near the edge of the park.” 

She had Finn describe Poe and repeated the description to her rangers. 

“I don't blame you for being worried for him, but our rangers are some of the finest in the land. If he's alive out there, we'll find him.” 

Finn nodded. “Thanks. I just hope he's all right.” 

“I hope so, too. Now, what do you know about this cult?” 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Poe woke up slowly, in a dark, deep valley. His head was throbbing, and the stars high above him were blurry. 

He tried to remember how he got there, but his memories were disjointed and confused. It was something for the paper, some kind of assignment? Shit, he wasn't even sure what country he was in. 

He was about to sit up, but decided against it. Carefully, he took stock of his body. He was on top of a carpet of pine needles that, judging by the height and steepness of the slopes on either side of him, were probably the reason he wasn't dead. The side of his thigh ached, and he was banged up, presumably from falling down one of the cliffs. His arms were covered in scratches and starting to form bruises. His right elbow stung where a patch of skin was scraped off. Why didn't past-him wear a jacket? It was much too cold for short sleeves. 

He touched the aching spot on his head and found that his hair was matted with warm, sticky blood. Well, a head injury would definitely explain the memory problems. 

He moved slowly, in case there were injuries he hadn’t felt yet, and as he got up, a sharp pain several inches below his right armpit confirmed his fear. He touched the spot with his fingers, and while it hurt like hell, he didn't feel a break. Didn't rule out a fracture, though.  _ Shit.  _

Well, he made it to standing. Now what? He felt foggy, like someone had stuffed his head with cotton fluff where his brain should be. 

He was lost in the woods. He needed water. Water flowed down, so he should walk down along the valley, in the direction it sloped. Right? It made sense. As much as anything made sense at the moment. 

Poe only made it a few paces before he realized he wasn't walking totally straight. Too dizzy. He stopped. Maybe walking was bad. Wait, what was he doing walking with a head injury? Bad idea. He lowered himself back down to the pine-needle carpet and closed his eyes. 

<><><><><>

The sky was light, even if the sun wasn't yet visible from the valley. Poe woke up again, thirsty, with the same headache. 

_ Finn. _ He had to get back to Finn. Was Finn okay? Did he even survive? 

With a jolt of panic, he remembered the cult leaders with the shotgun. And he had fallen asleep on their land.  _ Fuck.  _

Poe blinked his eyes open. With a deep sigh and a grunt of effort, he heaved himself to his feet, ignoring the pain in his head and his side. 

He needed to finish his mission, but looking up at the ridge, he knew there was no way he could make it back to the top. Especially not scraped up like this, he admitted to himself. Plus, without water, he wouldn't last long out here. The state park was south of here, if he was where he thought he was, near where he'd crashed the ATV. They'd be able to help him, and they could contact law enforcement about the camp.  

Poe looked at the strip of sky and found the direction the sunrise was coming from. That was east, so south was… that way, down the valley. Nothing else to do but start walking, then. Just step by step over pine straw and around the rocks in the valley.

It wasn't long before the dryness in his mouth and throat was really bothering him, and every step jarred his ribs and head just a little more. At first, the pain and discomfort were something to ignore. Then they were something to push through, with gritted teeth, for Finn, for the paper, and for the kids at the camp. His head ached, and breathing was painful. A mile later, though, the pain was something that might just keep him from walking altogether, and he wasn't sure he could go on. He stumbled into a boulder and leaned onto it, breathing hard. He  _ had _ to go on. This was just a break, just a short break. He picked at some of the dried blood on his arms. Above him, on the ridge, a pair of ATVs rumbled.

_ Shit.  _

Poe ducked behind the boulder, hoping the cult leaders wouldn't see him. He was a dead man if they caught him.

“State Park Rangers, we've got a code orange: missing hiker,” said a man into a megaphone. “Repeat, code orange: missing hiker. Please stay on clearly marked trails and remain with your party for your safety.” 

Poe could have melted with relief. He came out from behind the boulder and waved up to the rangers on the ATVs. 

“Hey!” His voice was hoarse with thirst, but he yelled anyway. “Hey, down here! Please help me!” 

His vision went blurry, and he lost his balance. 

The next half hour or so was kind of patchy and dreamlike. A man in a park ranger uniform was examining his head injury. Someone raised a bottle of water to Poe's lips, and he gulped it down, desperate. Somehow they'd gotten him to the top of the ridge, there was something bulky around his neck and shoulders, and they were securing him to a stretcher with wide straps. The sky was pretty, pine trees lining the edge of his view of the morning light. 

His tablet, shit, he had to recover it. Did they find his tablet? Finn was going to get it-- Finn! 

“Is Finn okay?” he asked the rangers. Everything went fuzzy again. 

He tried to sit up, but couldn't. Right, the straps. Never mind then. 

“Is Finn okay?” He needed to know. 

In the medical cabin of the visitors’ center, reality started to come back into focus. He had an IV in the back of his hand, and that was probably helping. And he was still in a neck brace. The medics were friendly, even though Poe had asked them over and over about Finn, who was, thankfully, alive and fine except for a few bruises and blisters. Apparently repeating a question like that was one of his concussion symptoms. A medic cleaned the blood from Poe's head and stitched up the gash. 

When he woke up the next time, afternoon sunlight was shining through the windows, and he felt a thousand times better after rehydrating and sleeping. They brought him a plate of bacon, eggs, and grits from the cabin's homey kitchen and sat him up cautiously, and he devoured it. 

As he was finishing up, a short ranger with huge binoculars came in. 

“How's our patient doing?” she asked. “You gave us quite a scare.” 

“Feeling way better, thanks. You guys saved my life out there, and I can't thank you enough.” 

“All in a day's work.” She smiled. “You've got a couple visitors who want to see you; is that all right?” 

“Visitors?” Finn and who else? “Sure!” 

Finn sprang into the room, followed by a woman in tan, plaid flannel whom Poe didn't recognize. 

“Buddy! You're all right!”

“Poe, you're alive!” 

Poe wrapped his arms around Finn, and Finn's arms were around him, and he was warm and kind and  _ safe. _

“That's my jacket,” Poe realized. 

“Oh yeah, I pulled it from the crash.” Finn started to take it off.

“No, no, keep it.” It wasn't like Finn had any clothes of his own, and besides, he looked good in it. Really good. “It suits you.” 

“Thanks.” Finn smiled. “Oh, but at least take this.” He reached into the chest pocket and pulled out Poe's camera card. 

“Oh my god, you-- this is perfect. Finn, this is just what we need to expose the camp.” 

The young woman spoke up. “And we found your exposé. We've already contacted your newspaper and the state sheriff's office.” 

She reached into her pack and handed him his tablet. 

“No way!” 

It was his tablet all right, a bit scratched and dirty, but it was miraculous that he had it back at all. 

“The sheriff's department is going to conduct a raid on Sovereign Mercy Hill tomorrow morning, Poe,” said the ranger with the binoculars. “If you're feeling up to it, I think a journalist should be there to cover the story.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Later that night, Finn met with the state sheriff, several police officers, and a team of federal agents. They were intimidating, especially since Finn had grown up being told that government was a source of persecution and been afraid to run away with no ID, but he had been facing a lot of his fears lately. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. By the end of the meeting, he was glad and relieved to have the law enforcement officers on his side. He answered their questions and drew a map of the camp that showed them which buildings were where and what they were used for.  

The law enforcement team came up with a plan to sweep through the camp early the following morning. The key would be arresting the leaders without frightening or endangering any of the kids. They couldn't rule out the possibility that the leaders would try to use the children as hostages, either. Speed was critical. 

The next morning, before sunrise, Finn had butterflies in his stomach. He, Rey, and Poe nestled into a hiding spot at the edge of the woods. They'd be impossible to spot in the darkness, but their vantage point would give Poe a shot at pictures of the raid. It was unreal, coming back to the place he'd lived for years now that he'd finally managed to break free, but if everything went according to plan, this place would be no more than a memory in a few hours. 

In the end, the waiting felt much, much longer than the actual raid. Agents who were trained in protecting children went to the barracks and explained what was going on, while the local sheriff's department went directly for the cult leaders. Other personnel swept through, taking pictures and gathering evidence. Poe's camera clicked over and over, barely audible even in the silence of the hiding spot. 

The sheriff led the camp adults out of the administration building and put them in handcuffs. Ren squinted in the sunlight and called down divine wrath, Pamela went through a pat-down and had three knives and her taser taken off her, and Hucks looked up to the heavens in despair, complying with an air of resignation. 

“This is more satisfying than I’d like to admit,” Finn whispered to Rey and Poe. “I've been scared of them for way too long.” 

Poe nodded, understanding. Finn didn't know what they'd done to him that night, but maybe it was more than Poe had let on. 

“You have every right to feel satisfied,” said Rey. “They hurt you. Fuck them.” 

Finn hesitated before smiling. “Y'know what? Yeah. Fuck them.” He wasn't used to swearing, but it seemed to fit. 

Child Protective Services moved the children to a place they'd be safe until their families could be contacted and evaluated, but because Finn was an adult, they couldn't bring him along. 

“So, what's next for you?” Rey asked him as the camp was emptying. 

Finn looked at Poe, hesitating. 

“You're still invited to come stay with me, buddy. I've got a guest bedroom, and we could use an intern at the paper. Actually,” he added to Rey, “both of you are. You can work for us, save up for whatever's next, be part of our little family at the paper if you want.” 

Rey lit up. “You're offering me a job? And a place with the people on your tablet screen? Sign me up!” 

Finn had wanted to hitchhike two nights ago when they escaped, but in just the short time since then, he'd grown too attached to Poe and Rey to be anywhere but with them. 

“I'd love to, Poe,” he said, beaming. 

That day, they started the road trip back to Poe's house. Rey ended up doing most of the driving, since Poe was still recovering from his concussion. They stopped at quirky tourist traps and diners along the way, and Finn started recovering from the forced fasting he'd been subjected to. By the time they made it back, he'd drank five and a half milkshakes. Rey had been hungry, too, it seemed-- they were both bottomless pits. They filled up the rest of Poe's memory card with selfies in his car and at the sites they visited. Finn couldn't remember ever feeling so happy. Was it possible for your face to get stuck in a permanent grin? 

Over the next month, the paper published Poe's exposé with the pictures he'd taken, Finn made a bit of his own money sharing his experiences in a follow-up, and Rey and Finn were proving themselves competent interns. Finn contacted his adopted parents and got them to return his birth certificate and social security card, and then he cut them off for good. He also found a local LGBT+ friendly therapist who specialized in trauma recovery, and he started studying for his GED.

Finn knew it would take a while to recover from everything he'd been through, and it wouldn't be easy unpacking everything. But for now, he felt normal. At home. He was finally living, finally free.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to AUs, so helpful comments & concrits are welcome! Thanks for reading :)


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